Dark Roads

by Chevy Stevens

  I crouched low in the bush and crept closer. I was only a few feet behind Vaughn now. Did I dare run for the truck? A branch snagged on my shirt, snapped. Jonny’s eyes widened when he saw me. He coughed to cover the noise. Vaughn turned back around.

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep your mouth shut?”

  “I know you took photos of Hailey.” Jonny was looking into my eyes as he spoke. “She told me everything. Pervert.” Vaughn kicked him between the legs and Jonny dropped to his knees, gagging and coughing. Vaughn used his boot to push him down, then he sat on his back, wrapped his hand in his hair, and ground his face into the dirt.

  “You trying to resist me, you little punk? You trying to go for my gun?” He jabbed his fist into Jonny’s ribs—two times, hard. Jonny grunted, gasped for air.

  I shimmied under the truck. Screw it. I didn’t care. I was going to kill Vaughn.

  Jonny was spitting out dirt, laughing in a crazy way. “Fucking pedophile.” Why wouldn’t Jonny shut up? He was making things worse.

  Vaughn was kneeling on his back now. The click of handcuffs. “You’re under arrest.”

  “What for?”

  “Possession of a controlled substance. That’s just for starters. I’m going to make sure you stay in prison.” Jonny laughed again, but his eyes were angry when he met mine under the truck.

  He mouthed, Get out of here.

  “Where’s Hailey? What did you do to her?” Vaughn’s knee pressed into Jonny’s kidney.

  “Don’t know … where she is.” He groaned out the words, gasping.

  “You were with her that night. I know you were.”

  “She never showed.”

  Vaughn smashed Jonny’s face into the ground again. Rock hit bone and a wound opened above Jonny’s eyes. His nose was already bloody, same with his mouth. The color dark in the dim light. I wiggled forward on my belly. One inch at a time.

  “Stop!” Jonny was talking to me, not Vaughn, but I had no intention of leaving him here to goad Vaughn into killing him. It was like he wanted to be punished.

  “You’re going to get caught.” Jonny was still staring at me, blood dripping into his eye. I don’t care, I mouthed back, and I made a throat-slitting motion.

  Vaughn laughed. “For doing my job?”

  “Take me in,” he said to Vaughn. “Take me to jail.” He was trying to get Vaughn to haul him out of here. Away from me.

  Static crackled from Vaughn’s radio. Vaughn hesitated, then pushed himself up, leaving Jonny flat on the ground. I crawled under the axle, using the tire to hide me—my face inches from Jonny’s. Vaughn was sitting inside his car, talking into his radio. Had he reported Jonny? Maybe I was the only person who knew he’d pulled him over. He could do anything he wanted with no witnesses.

  “I’m going to cut him,” I hissed.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Jonny slurred through his broken lips. “If he catches you, then this last year was for nothing.” He turned his head to look at Vaughn’s car. “You have to clear out my place. Get rid of the burner phone. And find Beth. Tell her what happened.”

  “I can’t leave you.”

  “He won’t kill me. He wants me blamed for everything.”

  Tires on pavement, an engine. Another car was coming down the road—and the lights would reveal me. I rolled into a ball and tucked myself close to the big tire. The car slowed and stopped.

  The engine idled. A door opened, slammed shut. Vaughn got out of his car next, also slamming the door. “What are you doing here?” He sounded pissed off.

  “You weren’t answering the radio.” Thompson’s voice. Good, unless it turned out that he was also a dirty cop. I peeked around the side of the tire.

  “Mr. Miller here was speeding.”

  “What happened to his face?”

  “He was resisting arrest.”

  “He’s lying!” Jonny yelled from the ground. “He just wanted to beat me up.”

  “Found drugs in his glove box. Looks like a few ounces of cocaine. I’m bringing him in.”

  “He planted it!” Jonny shouted. “I don’t deal—ask anyone.”

  “That’s enough out of you.” Vaughn stalked over to Jonny, dragged him up by his cuffed arms, and led him toward his car. Jonny stumbled, his balance off. They moved out of my sight.

  The sound of a door opening. Noises, like bodies grappling, a grunt of pain, then the door slammed shut. Vaughn and Thompson walked a few steps away—but closer to me.

  “He looks bad,” Thompson said. “You should have a doctor look at him.”

  Vaughn grunted. “He’s a drug-dealing dirtbag. He tried to run. He had it coming, believe me. Get this truck towed. I want it in the impound.”

  Vaughn drove off. I waited for Thompson to walk back to his car, but his steps were going in the opposite direction. He opened the driver’s door of Jonny’s truck. It sounded like he was searching, but he was being more methodical than Vaughn. What was he looking for?

  I tensed, my fingers digging into the earth. Finally, Thompson’s boots crunched over to his car and the door closed. I didn’t have much time.

  I shimmied to the back of Jonny’s truck, rolled out, and crawled into the woods until I was hidden by the trees. Then I got to my feet and sprinted toward Jonny’s house.

  CHAPTER 30

  Beth

  Beth waited for hours. She stared out at the lake, annoyed with herself for being disappointed. Jonny didn’t trust her—and maybe he was right. Why was she keeping the truth to herself? She should tell Thompson. He needed to investigate Vaughn. But she kept circling back to the other reality. If she did tell Thompson, then she was putting Hailey in danger.

  She felt lost without her phone. She was sure Hailey had stolen it, the bike parts too. Those fresh paw prints she’d seen by the lake were a dead giveaway. Plus she’d heard someone at the diner say that the Alberta man had been bitten. By midnight, she gave up on Jonny and huddled in the backseat of her car. She took a Xanax, and when that didn’t work, took another.

  * * *

  The next morning, dry-mouthed and groggy, she got ready for work. When she opened the driver’s door of her car, she paused, trying to understand what she was seeing. Her cell phone was on the front seat. Black screen. Dead. Hailey had returned her phone.

  Beth looked around but the campground was silent. She would charge the phone at the diner and see if Jonny had texted her.

  By the time she got into town, the morning rush was well underway. She hurried inside and called, “Sorry!” at Mason as she wrapped her apron around her waist. “Car problems.”

  He frowned. “Again?”

  “Yeah, I left the interior light on. So dumb.” She fussed behind the counter, grabbed her notepad, and shoved it into her pocket. “What are the specials today?”

  He pointed to the chalkboard. “Pork patty breakfast sandwich. We talked about it yesterday.”

  “Right, of course.”

  “You sure you’re okay? Have you spoken to Jonny?”

  She paused, menus in hand. “No. Did something happen?”

  “He was arrested last night. Vaughn pulled him over, found drugs in his truck.”

  Drugs? She’d never seen Jonny take anything stronger than vodka. “Is he in jail?”

  “His parents are bailing him out this morning.”

  She glanced at the clock, then back at Mason, but he read her mind.

  “I need you here today. It’s going to be busy—and that boy will be sleeping most the day. Seems he resisted and paid the price. Go after work. You can take him some food.”

  * * *

  The day was endless. She watched the door, hoping some of Jonny’s friends would come in so she could get information, but there was no sign of them, and she didn’t know the other townspeople well enough to ask. The diner seemed subdued. They all felt trouble in the air.

  When she was finished, Mason put together a care package for Jonny—soup, muffins, a slice of pie, burger, and fries—and told her it
was on the house. “Tell him to come back in soon.”

  She grabbed her purse and drove to Jonny’s. His truck wasn’t in the driveway, but it was possible the cops had impounded it. She knocked on the door. Silence. She knocked again, harder, then called his cell from her phone. It rang inside, then shut off abruptly. Now she was angry. She was standing on his porch with an armful of food for him and he was ignoring her?

  Beth looked up at the security camera in the corner, stuck her tongue out, then walked down to the end of the porch where the kitchen window was open a few inches.

  Stretching with one foot on his patio chair, she shoved the food inside onto the counter, then heaved herself after it. Jonny came around the corner—and stopped.

  “What are you doing?”

  She slid the rest of the way off the counter and held up a cardboard container. “Food.”

  He was wearing faded jeans, no shirt, and a lot of bruises. One of his eyes was swollen and rimmed a dark purple, almost black, and his cheek was scraped like it had been dragged along the ground. His ribs were splotched several shades of blue and he was holding an ice pack to them. How could one cop cause so much damage and get away with it?

  “It’s hard to chew.”

  She blinked back tears. “It looks awful.” She came closer, grabbed his free hand, and slipped her fingers through his. She didn’t think about whether she should touch him. How he had walked away from her. How he hadn’t texted her. Jonny made her forget every bad thing.

  “You need to report him.”

  “I tried.” He slipped his hand out of hers and sat at the kitchen table, sucking in a breath at the pain. “Soup smells good.”

  She didn’t know if he had pulled free because of her touch or her words. To cover her awkwardness, she got a bowl out of the cupboard and served him the chicken soup. He picked up the spoon, swished it around half-heartedly, and didn’t lift it to his mouth.

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “I was charged for drugs and theft. I have to go to court.”

  “Was it true? Did you have drugs?”

  “Vaughn planted them.”

  She sat across from him, relieved that they weren’t his, but worried about how he was going to get out of this mess. It would be his word against Vaughn’s. Jonny studied her face, his eyes dark blue, jaw tight. Was he upset that she had asked about the drugs?

  “I had a patch kit for Hailey’s tire,” he said. “She crashed trying to get down the mountain. Now my truck is impounded, and the kit is locked inside.”

  That’s why he was tense. He was finally admitting Hailey was alive, admitting he’d had a part in her disappearance. That had to mean he trusted her.

  “I can help.”

  “You can’t get involved. I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’m already involved.”

  “I lied to you, Beth. About a lot of stuff. You should hate me.”

  “Please don’t tell me how I should feel. Nothing in my world has made sense for a long time. When people see me, they see Amber. They want to know how I’m coping, how my parents are coping. What they really want are all the horrible details. You didn’t treat me like that—and, yeah, our situations are different. But we’ve both lost someone.”

  “I know you want to solve Amber’s case, but I have to protect Hailey.”

  “What about you? Who’s looking out for you?”

  “My parents found a lawyer.” He leaned back in his chair, wincing. His ice pack had melted, the blue gel turned slushy. She found a fresh one in the freezer and handed it to him.

  “Hailey has your cell phone,” he said. “I was going to give it back.”

  So it had been Hailey. Beth nodded. “I found it this morning.”

  “That’s good.” He let out his breath. “She took my bike, so she’s getting around. She’ll circle back to me when she thinks it’s safe. She was under the truck when I got beat up.”

  Beth tried to imagine how Hailey had felt watching Vaughn hurt Jonny. She must have been out of her mind with anger and fear. Beth felt that way just at the idea.

  “I’m glad she didn’t do something crazy.”

  “Yeah. I was scared she was going to kill Vaughn.” He pushed himself up from the chair and hobbled over to the couch, dry-swallowed a couple pills from a bottle on the coffee table. Then he lay down, lifting his legs onto a cushion with a groan. “Goddamn, that hurts.”

  She picked up the soup and set it on the coffee table. His eyes were drifting shut. The new ice pack was pressed to his ribs. “Sorry I’m being rude,” he mumbled. “Tired.”

  “It’s okay.” She found a knit throw on the chair and draped it over him. His mouth lifted in a faint smile, his free hand reaching up to graze hers. A soft thank-you.

  “Get some rest,” she whispered.

  She sat in the armchair, staring at the bottle of pills on the coffee table. His breathing deepened. She studied the faint patterns of mottled green and blue across his rib cage. Knuckles, the hard edge of the boot, a square tread. Vaughn had kicked and stomped a man handcuffed on the ground.

  She imagined Vaughn hitting her sister. She wouldn’t have stood a chance. No woman would, against that strength. The only way to fight back was to beat Vaughn through trickery.

  She needed to get him alone.

  * * *

  Beth left Jonny’s house before he woke up, and that night at the campsite she didn’t text him. She’d made it clear she was on his side. The rest was up to him. In case Hailey came through the campground again, Beth left water and granola bars on the picnic table. Curled up on her backseat, she listened for footsteps, but the only creatures she could hear stirring were crickets and frogs.

  In the morning, she checked her messages. Jonny still hadn’t texted. Stubborn boys and their misplaced heroics. She had a quick shower and rushed to the diner. The sun was already high in the sky, and she kept her car window down, letting the air blow her hair wild.

  The old-timers up at the counter griped about the record temperature and complained to Mason that he needed to turn up the air conditioner, which was already working overtime. Beth piled her hair into a bun and draped cold cloths around her neck whenever she had the chance. She hustled through the diner, refreshing waters and iced teas, blending milkshakes for whining kids, and delivering ice cream that began to melt before she could get it to the table.

  She was sure Vaughn would come in and gloat over Jonny’s arrest and she turned her head to check the parking lot so many times she had a crick in her neck. He missed breakfast, then lunch. She had almost given up when his truck pulled up outside near the end of her shift.

  A few men gave him dirty looks as he walked in alone, his shoulders back and his hand on his gun belt. Beth wondered if they’d heard—lots of people seemed to know Jonny and his family. Vaughn either didn’t notice or didn’t care about that reaction. He slid into his usual booth with a pleasant smile as he glanced at Beth.

  She brought him coffee and a menu. While she poured the hot liquid, she tried to work up the nerve to start a conversation, but he beat her to the punch.

  “Your shift must be ending soon.” Startled by the sudden rasp of his voice, she dripped coffee onto the table. While she wiped at it, she glanced at him through lowered eyelashes.

  “Yeah.” She thought quickly. How to get him alone? Maybe in his truck? “As soon as I get off, I have to walk to the gas station. My car is on empty, and apparently the truck stop pump is broken.” Customers had been complaining about the inconvenience all afternoon. It was perfect, if he took the bait. She looked out the window. “I’ve been dreading it. It’s so hot…”

  “You need a lift to the gas station? I’ve got a jerry can.”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek like she was thinking it over. “I don’t know…”

  He leaned back against the booth. “You heard that Jonny Miller’s been arrested.” It was a statement, not a question.

  The coffeepot was getting cold an
d there was a diner full of people waiting for their orders, but she had to see this through before she lost the moment. “Heard something about that.”

  “I told you that he was trouble.” There was a cruel glimmer in his eyes as he watched her closely. She couldn’t figure out if he wanted her upset or grateful.

  “I didn’t know he was into drugs. You were right.” She wanted to choke on the words, but it was obviously what he wanted to hear. He nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

  “I’ll have a plate of Mason’s meat loaf, and when you’re done, we’ll get you that gas.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “I don’t want you walking around alone.” Like he owned her. Like it was up to him what she did. You’re a psychopath and I’m going to prove it.

  “I appreciate that.”

  * * *

  When she hung up her apron and told Mason behind the counter that Vaughn was giving her a ride to the gas station, a strange look floated across his face.

  “What are you up to, kid?”

  “Nothing. He offered.” Then she grabbed her purse and left before Mason could say anything else, but she felt him watching all the way out the door, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Vaughn opened the truck’s passenger side for her. While he walked around the front, she hit the red record button on her phone and held it in her hand, hidden behind her purse.

  The police truck was smothering hot. Vaughn blasted the air conditioner, aiming the vent on her bare legs. She shivered, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, she had the feeling he’d done it on purpose. As they pulled away, she adjusted her jeans shorts, let her fingers absently rub at the top of her thighs. Vaughn flicked a glance at her legs.

  “How’s it going at the restaurant?”

  “Good. I like Mason.”

  “Are you going back to Vancouver at the end of summer?”

  “I’ll go home, but I might give up on law and do something with the arts. I like fashion.”